Stuck In A Loop
by KillerQueenHelekonla
Summary: I wrote this for a friend on deviantArt, who requested it with the prompt, "Rosey was walking down the yellow brick road" which I have modified slightly . She also asked that I include four words/phrases: unicorns; butterflies; the uprising of Communism in a post-apocalyptic world; rainbows. I own nothing, except the story. w


Rosencrantz was walking down the yellow brick road in the castle courtyard, when he suddenly realised that he had done this before. Not walking – he had decided, earlier, that as he knew _how_ to walk and since he remembered walking at various other points in time, he had most definitely walked before. No, _all of it_: he had done everything in his life before. And the weird sense of déjà vu he was constantly feeling suddenly made sense. It _felt_ like he had done it before, because he _had_, and not just once or twice, but many, many times, like the moon and her continuous waxing and waning.

At this realisation, he stopped in the middle of the yellow road, causing his long-time companion, Guildenstern, to stop as well, glaring at him in annoyance. Not that Rosencrantz noticed: the taller, brunette man's mind was elsewhere, lost in remembering the details of the loop he had discovered himself in. He remembered little else before the morning the King's messenger had summoned himself and Guildenstern (whom he remembered to be the same blond, irritable, intelligent man he was with now) to the castle, for some unexplained reason that had been revealed to them only when they arrived. He also remembered _very_ little after the point in time he currently found himself at. He did, much to his surprise, remember which one of them was Rosencrantz and which was Guildenstern: a quandary neither had been able to solve until then. Vague memories of a time when such things were clearer and more important floated behind his eyes. He recognised a face that was neither his nor Guildenstern's in one of them.

"Hamlet was there," he remarked suddenly.

"What?" The irritation in Guildenstern's voice was lost upon Rosencrantz.

"When we knew our right names. When one was distinct from the other and we were not so unsure of our sureness." Guildenstern smirked condescendingly.

"So what are they? Who are we then? Am I Rosencrantz or am I Guildenstern? Or perhaps you have deduced that I am, in fact, Hamlet!" His sarcasm sailed over Rosencrantz's head and off into the distance.

"No, no, you're not Hamlet! You're Guildenstern!"

"Why?" Guildenstern was less than impressed.

"Because you are." Rosencrantz's reply was said with only a trace of smugness; the rest was purity and simplicity: of _course_ the blond half of the duo was Guildenstern. It was the simplest thing in the world.

"Why am I though? Why is that _my_ name?" Rosencrantz considered this. He remembered that there _was_ a reason, but not what it was. So, instead, he made up his own.

"Perhaps… your manner? After all, although it is pronounced '_stein_', it is spelt, '_stern_'. And you _are_ somewhat of a stern…" His blind, blatant honesty was not only _pushing_ Guildenstern's buttons: it was dancing around, stamping its feet on them.

"And '_guilden_'?" Guildenstern asked, barely containing his anger. It was lost, again, on the gentle man who began to muse.

"Well… even though you are rather cross a lot, you have a heart of gold, really. It is as if… as if it is gilded! As golden as your hair! So, '_Gilded Stern_' – it's the perfect description of you!" The unexpected praise softened the blond's expression.

"What about your name?" he asked. Rosencrantz pondered it.

"I honestly have no idea," he replied airily after a moment. Guildenstern rolled his eyes.

"So how did you remember?"

"Well, it is strange. You see, we were walking and all of a sudden, it hit me!" Guildenstern's interest was perked and he folded his arms over his chest.

"What did?"

"Well, not a branch. There _are_ a lot of them – I suppose we _are_ in a garden – but none near enough to hit me. No, it was a realisation."

"That…?"

"That I had done it before." Guildenstern pinched the bridge of his nose, bracing himself for whatever insanely idiotic replies would possibly follow his next question.

"Done what before?"

"Everything. At first, I thought 'Oh, it must just be déjà vu,' but then I remembered everything. It is as if we are in a loop, you see, but I cannot, for the life of me, remember what happens to us in the end. All I know is that it involves rope, a boat, and trees. Oh, and a letter written by the King."

"…A loop?"

"Well, this has happened more than once! I know it. I am not quite sure _how_ I know, I just do. It is as in a dream, where you are in a forest, running, and you cannot see any wolves, or hear them, or smell them, and it is probably not even the right geographical location for them. But all the same, you know that it is _they_ from whom you flee."

"So, basically, you are saying that we have done this before?" Guildenstern began pacing back and forth before Rosencrantz.

"Yes."

"And that, apart from rope, a boat, trees, and the King's letter, you have no idea how we shall meet our untimely demises?"

"Exactly. I think that Hamlet may have something to do with it too. And England…"

"…Hamlet and England?"

"Precisely."

"Right… Forgive me if I fail to have faith in your 'remembering'." Rosencrantz shrugged.

"I don't believe in it anyway."

"What?"

"England."

"Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?"

"What? No! I cannot quite believe we shall actually be _going to England_!" The brunette was far too excited about the prospect to notice the horror on Guildenstern's face, as he stopped pacing and realised the implications of this revelation. He grabbed Rosencrantz's shoulders, more roughly than he had intended to, in his panic.

"The King just ordered us to take _Hamlet_ to _England_, where they hang people from _trees_ with _rope_. We depart on a _boat_ and I was given_a letter from the King_." The excitement clouding the brunette's eyes cleared. It was replaced by stony disbelief and sadness.

"Oh…"

They stood, with nooses around their necks, waiting for the hangman. Guildenstern realised that, only a day ago when they had spoken of it, Rosencrantz had correctly predicted the vital clues of their demises. The rest of his partner's spiel was still less than believable to him, though.

"Do not look so gloomy!" Rosencrantz chirped, sounding far too cheerful for someone about to be hung, life-in-a-loop or not. "We shall be at the beginning again soon enough." Guildenstern turned his head to see his partner smiling at him.

"We are _not_ coming back," Guildenstern snarled. "There is no loop we are in! We are going to die, and all that you can do is chirp about it!"

"What am I supposed to do?" Rosencrantz cried in outrage, his smile fading fast into a scowl of his own. "Mope about like _you_? Shall I talk of something which suits you more? The slaughter of unicorns and butterflies, perhaps? Maybe the abolition of rainbows? Or the uprising of Communism in a post-apocalyptic world, perchance?"

"What?" Guildenstern was confused by the last suggestion.

"Oh, none of those? Then I shall simply sulk, then. As _you_ always do. And we _are_ coming back! I know we are! I remember it!"

"You do not remember _breakfast_!" Guildenstern shot back spitefully. "I told you before: death is _nothingness_! Did you even listen? When you die, you are nothing! No more! You are 'not'! _You are nothing when you die_!"

"To you, I am nothing _now_!" The sudden accusation stung Guildenstern.

"No… Rosencrantz…" Rosencrantz looked away from him, into the distance.

"It is true! I know what you said to that actor when I was bathing and you were 'shaving'!" – Guildenstern was shocked: Rosencrantz could not have overheard (they had whispered too lowly) and he had certainly not told his partner of the incident. The brunette continued his rant through the blond's reverie – "He asked you if either of us were interested in Albert, the female man! He said that _no one_ had no interest! And you replied, 'No, we have no interest, and it is "everyone has interest in him"! Learn to speak properly!' He asked if, perhaps,_I_ had already filled that role for you! 'After all,' he said, 'He is not as feminine as Albert, yet quite pretty, all the same. And you seem awfully close.'

"And all that you could do was rant at him about that not being the case! That we were barely friends! That you condemn such acts! That they are… unnatural and-and deplorable and _abominable_! Yet you had told me mere days before, in the forest, the opposite! You told me that it did not matter what others thought! That we were happy! That nothing could change that! Was it all a lie? Did you simply use me for the sake of that act, which your palm could replicate without being deplorable or abominable, or unnatural? Please tell me, for we have little time left, and as of now, I am praying that the all-knowing Guildenstern" – the name was said with scorn, as if it were a disease – "_is_ right, and that I am the fool you played me for! That, as the all-knowing Guildenstern decreed with his righteous tongue, there _is_ nothing more after we die!" The force of Rosencrantz's words, the allegations he had made, and the pure, raw emotions he projected, shocked Guildenstern. And at that moment, when his world stopped by the power of his partner's words, Guildenstern remembered the loop they were in, that they had always been in. He had to say something, but he found that his overloaded mind would not yet allow him to speak anything more than a single word.

"Rosencrantz…" he whimpered, knowing that his oldest comrade, his dearest friend, his closest companion and – he could admit it now, for soon they would be dead, and the dead care not for such trivialities – his only true love, was right. He tried to explain that he had been foolish, that he was truly sorry, that now he knew the truth, all in that one word, in the name of his beloved. But Rosencrantz only heard a pathetic plea that spoke volumes of shame and guilt over the relationship the two had hidden for so long.

"I see. Well, I welcome nothing." – He spoke in a false, sarcastic cheerful tone – "What difference shall it make? The only thing that mattered, that made me _anything_ was you and I. Us. Everything we had and shared. Only it was nothing, was it not? Thus am I already nothing, and so little affected by becoming nothing. Truly, I shall so pass, then, from one nothingness to the next." Realising what Rosencrantz meant, Guildenstern turned his eyes in the same direction, looking into the distance. He saw their executioner approaching slowly.

"Oh no…" he whispered to himself, willing his mind to once again allow him the ability to speak.

"Damn!" Rosencrantz swore, drawing Guildenstern's attention back to him. "I cannot think of what my name means!" The brunette, all his anger released in his ranting, began to weep in earnest. It was a last display of the emotions his gentle, giant heart was filled with, pouring down his face as the rain that surely should have been falling softly on their faces, instead of the sun that smiled down cruelly instead. And with this, Guildenstern found his tongue – not in the cat's mouth, but his own. He had to try to make things right, just in case they were both wrong and this was truly the end.

"I do: '_Rosen_' is as a rose is," he said quickly, "because when you smile, it is as beautiful as all the roses in the world and because you are as precious to me as a newly-formed rosebud, every waking moment. And '_crantz_'… is as in… cranberries! My favourite fruit, because they are not only sweet, but tart. And you… you are my most favourite person in the world for the same reason. You are sweet, and kind, and gentle, but you have within you a passion none shall ever surpass. I only want you for myself. I had to lie to the actor." – Rosencrantz looks at him – "I… I was afraid that he would tell the King if I spoke of truth, and that the King would then take you from me. I could not let it happen! For you are my Rosencrantz, and I am your Guildenstern. So… so, '_Cranberry Rose_' – a perfect description of you." He uses Rosencrantz's own words to him, to show the brunette how much he cares and listens to him. They watch each other in a sort of happy silence for a moment: the Cranberry Rose and the Gilded Stern. They both opened their mouths to speak a final, heart-felt farewell. Then they felt a trigger being released and the last thought they each had was, "No matter: I shall see him soon and tell him then…"

_**Epilogue**_

It was early morning and still dark when the man crashing on the window awoke him. He would have thought it to be his partner of so many years, but the brunette was still asleep, cuddled up to the blond's chest. Then the man knocking began to holler for their attention.

"Rosencrantz! Guildenstern! A message from King Claudius of our most gracious country, Denmark!"


End file.
